Just about a year and a half ago, Sen. John McCain went to court to try to curtail the influence of a group to which A. Jerrold Perenchio gave $9 million, saying it was trying to "evade and violate" new campaign laws with voter ads ahead of the midterm elections.

As McCain launches his own presidential campaign, however, he is counting on Perenchio, the founder of the Univision Spanish-language media empire, to raise millions of dollars as co-chairman of the Arizona Republican's national finance committee.

Anna Nicole Smith's death is apparently the biggest story of the 20th and 21st centuries. If you were watching cable news yesterday, you already know that the largest stories of that time period are of course, (5) the Great Depression, (4) Vietnam and the peace movement, (3) the fall of the Soviet Union, (2) WWII and the dropping of the atom bomb, and (1) the death of a former Playboy Playmate who married for money and in some way embodies the perversion of the American Dream.

The good people at ThinkProgress must have a team of 800 research monkeys, because they've tallied the number of times the three major cable news networks referenced Anna Nicole Smith and the number of times they referenced Iraq, just to illustrate the insanity.

The results:

Network

Anna Nicole Smith

Iraq

CNN

141

27

FOX NEWS

112

33

MSNBC

170

24

You thought ThinkProgress would stop there? These are very hard-working research monkeys, people, and they are inspired by knowing they do God's work. (As an aside, can you imagine being assigned this project by the boss? "Hiiiii, Peter. I'm going to need you to watch hours of cable news that is saturated with worthless drivel, just to catalogue exactly how much drivel it is saturated with. Mmmmm'kay? Don't forget the TPS reports!")

No, sir. They go further -- courageously, valiantly, with no fear for their own health -- detailing the amount of time NBC, ABC, and CBS spent on Anna Nicole Smith vs. Iraq. (It's particularly bad for NBC, which spent 14 seconds on Iraq and three minutes and 13 seconds on ANS.) And to top it all off, they created a video with the lowlights, in which you can actually see Joe Scarborough scowling in disgust with himself and his producers. I can't post all that here, because you really ought to visit ThinkProgress to see everything in it's full majesty. The devolution of television news is upon us, and I know it makes you want to choke on your own vomit. (Sorry, too soon, I know.)

Since the Bush administration is outsourcing security along the Mexican border to Boeing Co., you'd think they'd want to keep a close eye on how the company is handling the job, not to mention spending the billions of taxpayer dollars that go with it. Turns out, they can't be bothered - they've outsourced that, too. As Rep. Henry Waxman (D-LA) pointed out in hearings yesterday, oversight on the Secure Border Initiative has been handed over to consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc. - which just happens to do regular business with their buddies at Boeing. You can get Waxman's full report here.

A new Gallup poll shows that the American public continues to look down on the supreme international body, with Americans giving the U.N. its lowest approval ratings ever.

Back in 2003 the U.N.'s public image took a southward turn after Bush's go-it-alone strategy took its course. But that was when we thought there were WMDs, etc. and there was actually support for this war. Now, at a time when opposition to the war is at its peak, and Bush's approval rating is at its nadir (32%), the U.N. still can't catch a break.

Gallup's latest measure of the United Nations' job performance is the lowest Gallup has seen since it began asking Americans as much in 1953: Only 29% of Americans believe the U.N. is doing a good job of trying to solve the problems it has face while 66% say it's doing a poor job. That puts the U.N. in the same boat as Bush as far as American's confidence and job approval rating.

The ill feelings could be due to corruption charges against U.N. officials; particularly those involving former Secretary General Kofi Annan's son. But that was nearly two years ago, there's clearly more to it. And if we don't have faith in our president or in the United Nations, who then do we trust? Maybe no one, or maybe we just don't care enough about the issues to value the body tasked with dealing with global challenges.

Worth noting: today's record negative perception of the United Nations follows a period from May 2000 to January 2003 when the organization received some of its most positive ratings from the American people -- routinely exceeding 50%.

Witnesses before Congressman Waxman's House oversight committee this morning said regulating drugs is literally impossible because nobody knows what they cost to make.

Steven Schondelmeyer of the University of Minnesota said the pharmaceutical industry insists its products make up a relatively small part of the health care budget. Yet, he pointed out, "half of all working adults and three quarters of elderly use one prescription every week the drug industry accounts for 4 percent of the nation's overall economy and18-19 percent of the health care dollar."

"Let's quit minimizing drugs," said Shondelmeyer. "This is an institutionalized case of kickback."

Different government agencies pay different prices for the same drugs. "There is no way of knowing whether and how the market works," said Gerard Anderson, a Johns Hopkins professor who has tracked the pharmaceutical industry. "Some states pay five times more than other states."

At the same time, it is pretty well established that Medicare Part D plans (covering Medicare recipients) are paying 20 percent more than the government pays for Medicaid recipients. At the same time, the federal and state governments are pushing people off Medicaid into Medicare where they end up paying higher prices.

Highlighting this story on MoJoBlog is a formality at this point, because every reader we have must be familiar with the lies and misrepresentations the Bush Administration fed us in the lead-up to the Iraq War.

But there's a new report out from the Pentagon's inspector general that details exactly what role Douglas Feith and his office had in this dirty business.

Intelligence provided by former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith to buttress the White House case for invading Iraq included "reporting of dubious quality or reliability" that supported the political views of senior administration officials rather than the conclusions of the intelligence community, according to a report by the Pentagon's inspector general.

A man who served as an interrogator in Iraq has penned a short but powerful article for the Washington Post describing how his actions in that role haunt his thoughts and dreams. A snippet:

Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.

American authorities continue to insist that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident in an otherwise well-run detention system. That insistence, however, stands in sharp contrast to my own experiences as an interrogator in Iraq. I watched as detainees were forced to stand naked all night, shivering in their cold cells and pleading with their captors for help. Others were subjected to long periods of isolation in pitch-black rooms. Food and sleep deprivation were common, along with a variety of physical abuse, including punching and kicking. Aggressive, and in many ways abusive, techniques were used daily in Iraq...

Looks like John Edwards just can't win. The netroots drama that has transpired over the past few days doesn't show signs of letting up. Not only may Edwards have isolated the progressive online audience he sought to reach through liberal bloggers Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan (who he fired yesterday and rehired today), he looks to also have upset religious Democrats, a group he has worked long and hard to win over. His wife, Elizabeth Edwards sits on the board of Call to Renewal, a popular religious left organization. Maybe the lesson learned here is: do your homework. If you want to use liberal bloggers to reach out to a progressive audience, but you don't want to isolate a group whose favor you have worked hard to cultivate, you should read their blogs before you hire them.

Col. Richard Bassett, the Army officers assigned to investigate possible abuse at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, has concluded that there is no evidence that guards mistreated the prisoners. In the course of his investigation, Bassett failed to interview any of the alleged victims.

The investigation was created when prison guards allegedly bragged about having beaten some detainees. Marine Sgt. Heather Cerveny reported, in fact, that the guards bragged to her at a bar that beating detainees was a common practice at Guantanamo.

Bassett's investigation team conducted twenty interviews with suspects and witnesses, and then Bassett came to his conclustion. According to a command spokesman, "He talked to all the parties he felt he needed to get information about the allegations that were made."

The investigation, which began in October, was expanded to include a similar allegation made by a civilian employee, who reported a conversation involving a guard. A "letter of counseling" will be sent to that guard, who is supposed to have concocted a fictitious account of detainee abuse.

Presidential candidate John Edwards has decided to keep his two female liberal bloggers after all, even though numerous sources reported the two were fired yesterday. The former senator's HQ released statements today, from Edwards, Amanda and Melissa (the two bloggers). The folks over at Tapped and Pandagon have the whole rundown. But essentially, Edwards reprimanded Amanda and Melissa for their "intolerant language." (I really think Bill Donohue is the one who needs a reprimand but it's not like anyone takes him seriously anyway.) And, surprise, surprise, Amanda and Melissa had to apologize to appease the right wing fanatics. Honestly, this is just another example of Democrats succumbing to pressure from the right. Are the Dems ever going to learn that walking the moderate line just doesn't win votes? The ironic part is that Edwards hired Amanda and Melissa to reach a progressive audience, one he might have just isolated.